Electric Vehicle Charging Station Coming Soon?
In Tacoma, we don’t hear much about electric vehicles. So it may come as a surprise to learn that our City Council is considering revising our Land Use Regulatory Code to allow operation of electric vehicle charging stations. The regional effort to prepare infrastructure for a planned influx of electric vehicles began last summer when the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) was tasked by the State to coordinate similar provisions in most Central Sound municipalities by the end of July.
The impetus behind this regional electric vehicle effort is the $100 million in Department of Energy stimulus funds entrusted to ECOtality, an Arizona-based firm, for the purpose of developing electric vehicle charging station networks in several US cities. In partnership with Nissan, maker of the Leaf electric vehicle, ECOtality aims to install thousands of public and private charging stations in the Seattle area. The City of Seattle has enthusiastically embraced the project, as has Olympia. Other cities, including Tacoma, are destined to host at least one public charging station. Not only will this help support the use of electric vehicles, the construction means a potential for new jobs in the area.
A little bit of online research indicates that Tacoma does boast its own Electric Vehicle Association. Are you a future electric vehicle driver? Should Tacoma increase its involvement in electric vehicle implementation programs (we don’t have a representative on the PSRC EV advisory board).
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Filed under: General
32 comments
T Thorax O'Tool June 9, 2010
This is interesting, as I’m considering buying a Chevy Volt when it comes out.
R RR Anderson June 9, 2010
did somebody say ARIZONA?
T Tacoma1 June 9, 2010
I have notices that this was in the works. It’s important to build the ev charging stations throughout the state asuch as possible. The reality is that the ev stations will probably be used mainly by out of towners visiting is, not Tacomans.
I’m saving up for a leaf myself. Seems like it will do everything I’ll need it to do, especially if Olympia, Portland, and Seattle all have charging stations.
A Altered Chords June 9, 2010
I am a future elec car driver. Hopefully we all are. This is the sort of thing that Tacoma should be a part of. I would like to see a representative from Tacoma on the PSR EV advisory board.
I inacomaintacoma June 9, 2010
fingers crossed. but where is the electricity going to come from that powers the charging stations? hopefully there’s a solar panel that comes with each of those new electric cars that you can put on the roof of your house to charge the damn thing. then maybe the lack of charging stations would not be a bad thing since it’ll only be for those who forgot to charge their chevy volts before leaving the house.
$100 Million dollars can buy a lot of solar panels instead of charging stations. I don’t think 100 mil is going to be enough for the stations, if customers are supposed to keep the stations going after that. I don’t think there are going to be enough customers. I think there is something wrong here. Who needs a charging station when the technology is such you can charge the thing at home? A charging station sounds like a waste of real estate to me, and also a waste of customers time. Unless the service at the station is a battery swap that takes no longer than filling a tank of gas. Hmmmmm
N Nick June 9, 2010
I could have sworn I heard ARIZONA as well RR, must have imagined it…
C captiveyak June 9, 2010
The vast majority of charging stations are going to be in-home units for EV owners. The public stations are intended for use by folks on longer trips/commutes. Most of these stations will be leased for a period of 2 years, if I remember correctly. There will be a few flagship multi-port quick charge stations.
Also, the $100mil is for cities here, in TN, AZ, CA, and OR (maybe others, can’t remember).
Go check out the City of Seattle’s page, which I linked in the article. There’s a lot of info there. It would be nice to see Tacoma become a more proactive participant. We’ll just barely get our amendment in by the deadline.
C captiveyak June 9, 2010
Also INVEST!!!! BUY NOW!!!
T Thorax O'Tool June 9, 2010
I have 2 friends who live in Seattle. From my front door, it’s 35 miles to one’s condo in Capitol Hill and 49 miles to the other’s apartment in Ballard.
40 miles per charge gets me there.
My friends would gladly let me plug in the car while visiting… except that the one in Cap Hill lives on the 5th floor and has a draconian HOA to deal with. My other friend lives on the 3rd floor and is on the back (away from the street) side of the building. Thus charging from them isn’t really feasible.
So, I can see using a pay-to-charge station on long trips, and if you forgot to charge at home.
But look at cost for a sec… Let’s say (guessing here, but let’s run with it) that the station will charge you $2.50 to charge the car. Let’s also assume $3.25 per gallon gas. I dunno about the Leaf, but the Volt claims to get 40 miles per charge and 50mpg from it’s engine.
40/2.50= 16 cents per mile.
50/3.25 = 15.4 cents per mile.
So, while on the road it’s cheaper to just use the gas engine, at $2.50 per charge and $3.25 per gallon. Now, GM Claims that the national average to charge the car @ home will be $1.50 per day. We do have some of the cheapest power in the nation in WA (gotta love hydro), so its easy to speculate the actual cost to juice it up at home could be sub $1.50… base don GM’s claims. We’ll see how that works out, but that certainly IS cheaper than gas.
So does this mean that charging stations shouldn’t be built?
Not at all. Firstly, these are free Obamabucks from the stimulus program. If we don’t use them, Olympia and Seattle will. Normally I’m not one to be for allocating funds “just because”, but we all know the national debt is never going to be repaid. We may as well get something out of it.
Secondly, having such stations makes people more likely to buy an elec car because the perception of only being able to charge at home will be gone. Seeing the stations would be a major incentive, because people will know they can charge on the road.
Thirdly, they don’t need to be as ubiquitous as gas stations… for now. Give that one time.
You can’t encourage a new form of energy usage without the infrastructure there to make it happen. Build a few dozen electric stations powered by solar/wind/whatever they can do on site and with a cheaper than gas cost to use the charger, and voila! you’ve planted the seeds to start getting off of gas.
All that peak oil stuff isn’t made up. The 100,000 barrels per day of crude leaking into the Gulf isn’t made up. We gotta get cars off of gas.
It’s gotta happen sooner than later, and I’d rather see T-Town in the leading edge of this movement rather than desperately playing catch-up in a few years.
T Thorax O'Tool June 9, 2010
Err, typo. 39 miles to my friend in Ballard. Not 49.
My bad.
J janemckane June 9, 2010
I will gladly pay any difference and happily go a bit further to get to the charging station. It’s just a matter of adjusting plans. It’s all of our responsibility to get us off gas. I am all for this.
A Altered Chords June 9, 2010
When we power all cars with elec. vs. gas, we will no longer be shipping piles of US money to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, United Kingdom.
Hydro electric power made right here in Washington!
I inacomaintacoma June 9, 2010
it’s better than nothing. but how fast is a ‘quick charge’ at one of those stations going to be?
is thorax going to have to plan a 30 min stop before going from one empty condo in tacoma to another?
battery swap technology in the cars and at the stations seems more viable.
amurka does need to do something about it’s transportation consumption of the oil pie.
i’d just like to see more facts about how long it’s going to take to quick charge these things. because i know there is engineering out there for the battery swap station.
here’s an idea, what about some obama bucks for factories running on hydrogen instead of oil? that would cut 25% out of the oil pie. More hybrids would cut even more.
i just don’t want this ECOtality thing be a clever scam of obama bucks. yeah 100 mil spread out over a few years is just job security for some people, regardless if the experiment succeeds.
the good thing about tacoma is if you live in the area between downtown and north, you don’t even need an electric car. you can go to school, get groceries and always be within a mile of a bar to waste your life in.
T Tacoma? June 9, 2010
There was a seperate motion at the end of the council meeting (after open public comment) directing the City manager to develop plans for allowing electric Low Speed Vechicles (LSVs).
C captiveyak June 9, 2010
the rapid charge stations will recharge a battery in a couple of minutes. ECOtality is very serious about making this successful. Drivers who purchase the Leaf and the ECOtality home charge systems will be asked to participate in a study monitoring driving and charging habits, so that ECOtality can get continue honing their design and approach. I’ve been talking to these guys for about a year now. This is definitely not a scam.
C captiveyak June 9, 2010
*correction: i should clarify — if I recall Rich Feldman’s words correctly, the rapid charge stations will charge a battery to 50% in a couple minutes. Not a full charge.
T TacomaThinker June 10, 2010
Does Grit = Green?
Not sure if t-town will show up for this one. Hope I’m wrong…
- unless of course they push for a walkable, pedestrian, Link-connected city instead.
C crenshaw sepulveda June 10, 2010
“we will no longer be shipping piles of US money to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, United Kingdom.” Actually we get most of our imported oil from Canada and Mexico. I, for one, like keeping the money in this hemisphere.
A Altered Chords June 10, 2010
CANADA 2,020,000 bbl per day
SAUDI ARABIA 1,149,000 per day
MEXICO 1,086,000 bbl per day
VENEZUELA 984,000 bbl per day
NIGERIA 939,000 bbl per day
ANGOLA 490,000 bbl per day
IRAQ 475,000 bbl per day.
Not feeling any better. In state is better than in hemisphere. I can’t believe we buy anything from hugo chavez.
I inacomaintacoma June 10, 2010
we’re fkd. at the rate of that carbon going into the atmosphere and the effort it takes to convince leaders that if we don’t go solar electric yesterday, sht is going to reach a point you can’t come back from. just like an over dose, except, we don’t have a syringe full of epi big enough to plunge into the biosphere when CO2 levels reach their max. we are soooo fkd! get ready join the dinosaurs. damn, it could have been baywatch all day every day, but the fking drill baby drill zombies pissed in all our cornflakes. this really makes me want to visit the le may museum and pinch a loaf off in the shiniest car they got.
C crenshaw sepulveda June 10, 2010
60 percent of Washington State’s electricity comes from hydro. The national average is less than 8 percent. Clearly we are in the lead for hydro power but we will probably not be building new hydro plants in the future. I believe that for every electric car that we put on the road we will have to conserve the electricity it takes to run the car. Other wise we will most likely have to buy our electricity from out of state or build new nuclear, gas, oil, or coal power plants. The question is can we save enough electricity to power a state full of electric cars?
C captiveyak June 10, 2010
CS – You’re correct. This is why the government and power providers are interested in improving the power grid. Delivery systems can be improved to boost efficiency. A gigantic push for wind power is also underway, with 2 large wind farms near Vantage. Others are planned for the immediate future. In a lot of places, transmission lines are not yet ready to handle the new loads from these new supplies. But a ton of progress has been made in the last 2 years.
V Vaio June 10, 2010
@RR
Another tacomic: Lonergan’s inquiry of tree definitions left out of the forestry plan.
Street Trees: likely to bum cigarettes, litter all over the sidewalks, congretating near Jack-in-the-Box… notable differences between North End manicured lawn trees vs. Hilltop…
T tacoma1 June 10, 2010
Most people will actually be charging their electric vehicles at home, in their own garage, at night. Why that is important is that it is also the exact same time that our power comany’s have excess power (our hydro power plants produce elec. 24-7, but have no way to store it). Much of the electricity generated in the evening currently goes to waste.
As it will take many years for electric cars to overtake ice vehicles, the added load on our power plants will be quite nominal. It probably will add extra profitability for them, and even help keep our rates down.
R RR Anderson June 10, 2010
@vaio i’ve written down your suggestions… on the inside brim of my mental stew-pot thanks!
@tacoma1 good point sir!
T Thank you June 10, 2010
I thought Campbell’s motion was about SkateBoarding.
F Frank Castro June 10, 2010
Tacoma Power is a strategic partner in ETEC’s EV project. Tacoma Power has made a committment to be on the leading edge of transportation electrification. We have worked with DOE Idaho National Labs on a Plug-In Hybrid Electric vehicle demo and study. Currently we have 4 PHEV vehicles in service used daily. We will also deploy Nissan Leafs and particiapte in the preparation for the deployment of these vehicles in our region. FYI – There is enough existing generation capacity to supply EV’s for the foreseeable future provided battery charging is done during “off-peak” time of day. 95% of Lithium Ion Batteries are recycleable. EV’s are only part of the solution to energy independence and sustainability. But they are real and will be here shortly.
R RR Anderson June 10, 2010
IMAGINE TACOMA: more golfcart friendly. I demand Boe realize this dream with his fine drawing skills.
I Ian June 10, 2010
@Frank Castro, I assume forseeable future doesn’t mean everyone replaces their internal combustion car with an EV and continues to drive the way they do now. What does it mean? I’m curious how many trips for how many cars could be supported with all our excess off-peak power without causing California to buy more fossil fuel electricity from dirtier providers than us?
I think the solution is to live close to work, or work close to where you live, eat local food, mostly vegetables, and don’t buy junk you don’t need. Won’t happen though…
W william June 10, 2010
Regarding Mr. Thorax’s post #9 – Check your math Thorax – your units are miles per dollar, not cents per mile (40mi/$2.50 = 16mi/$)
Therefore all conclusions in your post based on that little calc are incorrect and the electric is cheaper to run than the gas at 3.25/gal)
A Altered Chords June 10, 2010
@ 32 – Gasoline is cheap and has always been cheap compared to alternatives. I spent $2.83/gal today at costco.
We (The U.S) needs to factor in things like the environmental impact and cost to defend our interests in countries like nigeria and kuwait when thinking about the real cost of using gasoline.
William – I can go 16 miles on $1.00? is that the way this works?
I inacomaintacoma June 11, 2010
ooooh i think thorax’s speak & math had a boo boo